10 Essential Steps to Take After Making Your Music Available Online

Being an artist means being a creative– producing, innovating, and perfecting your content all day, every day. But how do you account for everything you put online? To ensure that you’re getting the most earnings and data out of your content, follow these 10 steps.

1. Register with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)

Whenever your music is played publicly, the songwriter is due a public performance royalty. PROs are the agencies that collect and distribute these royalties to you and your publisher. (Confused about royalties? Check out our blog post on the 5 royalty streams every artist should know).

The three main PROs in the United States are: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. Once you have registered with one, submit your compositions to them.

2. Register with SoundExchange

When your music is played on non-interactive services, such as Pandora or SiriusXM, you are due a digital performance royalty. SoundExchange is a non-profit PRO that collects these royalties and distributes them to the appropriate artists and sound recording copyright owners.

Side note: if you operate as your own label, you can register as both a featured artist and rights owner.

3. Submit your Artist Bio and Images to All Music

Spotify and iTunes utilize All Music for the bios and images that are displayed on artists’ pages in their stores.

4. Set up Apple Music Connect

With a customizable bio, images, and exclusive content, Apple Music Connect lets you engage with your fans and share your music.

7. Submit your Release Information to Nielsen BDS

Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems tracks monitored radio, TV, and Internet airplay of songs. Like Nielsen SoundScan, it also provides data for the Billboard Charts. So, be sure to register with both.

8. Submit your Release Information to Mediabase

Mediabase monitors radio airplay in the U.S. and Canada, and publishers charts based on the most-played songs on AM/FM and satellite radio.

9. Register your Entire Song Catalog with Music Reports

SONGDEX is the database, maintained by Music Reports, filled with rights information for millions of sound recordings and compositions. Registering your tracks with Music Reports ensures that you collect performance royalties across platforms like Amazon and local television stations.

To register, email shareinfo@musicreports.com with an excel sheet containing:

Artist

Title

Album

Composers

Publishers

Percent you own

Territories in which you have ownership

10. Distributing Physical CDs? Submit your Track Data to Gracenote

Gracenote tracks metadata of CDs in cars and on laptops, and can help ensure that you receive your royalties.

How to Submit to Gracenote:

Open iTunes

Insert your CD;

Highlight all the tracks and select “Get Info”

Input all related metadata

Click the gear icon on the top right, and select “Submit CD Track Names”

If you follow these 10 steps, you’ll be sure to get the most of your data and earnings as possible.